Common Sense Quotes - Page 30

• The American people expect more from Congress. They expect fiscal responsibility and common sense. They expect us to return to the pay-as-you-go budget rules that we had enacted in the past that helped us establish a surplus, however briefly.

  Melissa Bean

  Responsibility, Past, People

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• So robots are good at very simple things like cleaning the floor, like doing a repetitive task. Our robots have a little tiny bit of common sense. Our robots know that if they've got something in their hand and they drop it, it's gone. They shouldn't go and try and put it down.

  Rodney Brooks

  Simple, Hands, Trying

  "Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humans and Robots in the Economy". Council on Foreign Relations Malcolm and Carolyn Wiener Annual Lecture on Science and Technology, www.cfr.org. February 27, 2015.

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• When a man says that he is Jesus or Napoleon, or that the Martians are after him, or claims something else that seems outrageous to common sense, he is labeled psychotic and locked up in a madhouse. Freedom of speech is only for normal people.

  Thomas Szasz

  Jesus, Men, People

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• No race of kings has ever presented above one man of common sense in twenty generations.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Kings, Men, Race

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, correspondence and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by T.J. Randolph”

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• The Adlerians, in the name of "individual psychology," take the side of society against the individual. ... Adler's later thought succumbs to the worst of his earlier banalization. It is conventional, practical, and moralistic. "Our science ... is based on common sense." Common sense, the half-truths of a deceitful society, is honored as the honest truths of a frank world.

  Alfred Adler

  Names, Psychology, Sides

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• It may be expecting too much to expect most intellectuals to have common sense, when their whole life is based on their being uncommon -- that is, saying things that are different from what everyone else is saying. There is only so much genuine originality in anyone. After that, being uncommon means indulging in pointless eccentricities or clever attempts to mock or shock.

  Thomas Sowell

  Clever, Mean, Different

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays”, p.328, Hoover Press

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• The most uncommon form of intelligence is common sense.

  Evan Esar

  Common, Form, Uncommon

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• There's only one kind of common sense but a thousand varieties of stupidity.

  Evan Esar

  Stupidity, Kind, Thousand

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• Common sense is usually lack of imagination, and imagination is usually lack of common sense.

  Evan Esar

  Imagination, Common, Lack Of Common Sense

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• Common sense is better than genius, and hence its bestowment is more universal.

  Horace Mann

  Genius, Common, Universal

  Horace Mann (1872). “Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann ...”, p.50

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• His (Deschamps') complaint of court life was the same as is made of government at the top in any age: it was composed of hypocrisy, flattery, lying, paying and betraying; it was where calumny and cupidity reigned, common sense lacked, truth dared not appear, and where to survive one had to be deaf, blind, and dumb.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Lying, Government, Hypocrisy

  Barbara Tuchman (2017). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.539, Penguin UK

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• Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense. There are forty men of wit for one man of sense; and he that will carry nothing about him but gold, will be every day at a loss for want of readier change.

  Alexander Pope

  Loss, Men, Gold

  Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson (1812). “The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., in Verse and Prose: With a Selection of Explanatory Notes”, p.227

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• the art of becoming 'rich', in the common sense, is not absolutely nor finally the art of accumulating much money for ourselves, but also of contriving that our neighbour shall have less. In accurate terms, it is 'the art of establishing the maximum inequality in your own favour'.

  John Ruskin

  Art, Becoming, Favour

  John Ruskin (1938). “Unto this last: and other essays”

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• Panic: A highly underrated capacity thanks to which individuals are able to indicate clearly that something is wrong. Given their head, most humans panic with great dignity and imagination. This can be called democratic expression or practical common sense.

  John Ralston Saul

  Expression, Imagination, Able

  John Ralston Saul (2002). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.228, Simon and Schuster

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• Only sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is, in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research.

  Friedrich Engels

  Wall, Adventure, Research

  Friedrich Engels (2008). “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”, p.47, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Common sense is the folklore of philosophy.

  Antonio Gramsci

  Philosophy, Common, Folklore

  Antonio Gramsci (2011). “Prison Notebooks”, p.173, Columbia University Press

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• I think the idea that giant profitable corporations should pay their workers enough so that they don't need food stamps - since when is that left wing? How did that become "leftie?" That doesn't seem leftie to me. That seems common sense.

  Nick Hanauer

  Thinking, Wings, Ideas

  Source: gawker.com

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• Good judgment, common sense, and reason all fly out the window when emotions kick down your door.

  John Wooden

  Doors, Emotion, Window

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• Nose-to-tail eating is not a bloodlust, testosterone-fueled offal hunt. It's common sense, and it's all good stuff.

  Fergus Henderson

  Stuff, Bloodlust, Tails

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• Magicians and scientists are, on the face of it, poles apart. Certainly, a group of people who often dress strangely, live in a world of their own, speak a specialized language and frequently make statements that appear to be in flagrant breach of common sense have nothing in common with a group of people who often dress strangely, speak a specialized language, live in ... er.

  Terry Pratchett

  People, Magic, Dresses

  "The Science of Discworld". Book by Terry Pratchett, 1999.

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• It is time to put in place tough, new common-sense rules of the road so that our financial market rewards drive and innovation, and punishes short-cuts and abuse.

  Barack Obama

  Cutting, Innovation, Abuse

  First Speech to a Joint Session of Congress, delivered 24 February 2009

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• The light of common sense is fundamentally the same light as that of science, that is to say, the natural light of the intellect. But in common sense this light does not return upon itself by critical reflection, and is not perfected by what we shall learn to know as a scientific habit.

  Jacques Maritain

  Reflection, Light, Doe

  Jacques Maritain (2005). “An EPZ Introduction to Philosophy”, p.80, A&C Black

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• A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.

  James Russell Lowell

  Profound, Genius, Statesmanship

  James Russell Lowell (1871). “My Study Windows”, p.132

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• We must frankly confess, then, using our empirical common sense and ordinary practical prejudices, that in the world that actually is, the virtues of sympathy, charity, and non-resistance may be, and often have been, manifested in excess. ... You will agree to this in general, for in spite of the Gospel, in spite of Quakerism, in spite of Tolstoi, you believe in fighting fire with fire, in shooting down usurpers, locking up thieves, and freezing out vagabonds and swindlers.

  William James

  Believe, Fighting, Fire

  William James (1985). “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, p.284, Harvard University Press

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• Common sense is not an issue in politics--it's an affliction.

  Will Rogers

  Issues, Affliction, Common

  Will Rogers (1980). “Will Rogers' Weekly Articles: The Harding”

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